


In the Wake of a Nightmare

by Kurasayo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, John is a Saint, Mentioned Eurus Holmes, Mentioned Mycroft Holmes, Nightmares, POV John Watson, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:53:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22439473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurasayo/pseuds/Kurasayo
Summary: Sherlock has a nightmare. John is there to comfort his best friend.Set immediately after The Final Problem.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Kudos: 23





	In the Wake of a Nightmare

„VINCENT!“

A scream ripped John out of sleep. He wasn't quite sure, for a moment, where the sound had come from, but then his tired brain caught up and he jumped out of bed, nearly tripping.

"Sherlock..." his best friend's name fell from his lips.

Following the events of Sherrinford and Musgrave Hall, after the flat at Baker Street had been almost entirely destroyed, John had offered Sherlock to stay with him a while. He owned a small guest room, which he gladly made available for him.

He almost crashed into the door frame, as he followed the distressed noises and internally thanked God that Rosie was going to spend the next few days at a friend's. Sherlock's scream would' surely have woken her up and scared her. She probably would have started crying, which in turn would have made Sherlock feel even worse. If only for the guilt of having woken up that little girl from her sleep.

Panting, John reached the guest room. He stopped for a second, staring wide-eyed at the other man, who was tossing and turning in panic. Sweat glistened on his deathly pale skin and whimpering, frightened sounds left his throat, which didn't fit at all with the calm, calculating detective John had got to know years ago.

"Stop it... no, _no_ , please, Eurus, stop it. Let... redbeard, no, V-Victor..."

It broke John's heart. He'd expected Sherlock to have nightmares. That it would cause the detective more pain than he was willing to admit, even to himself. You couldn't recover from a reawakened childhood trauma in a matter of hours. It could take days, weeks, maybe months. Perhaps years. And yet... even though the doctor inside him had known it was possible, it shocked him. Seeing his friend like that, it was hurting him so much.

The things Eurus had put him through... they were horrible. Inhuman. A living horror story, that' s what he would call it on his blog. Although he wouldn't put it on his blog any time soon, out of respect for Sherlock.

Slowly and with caution John approached the bed and sat down next to his friend. He had no idea how Sherlock would react if he touched him in this state, so he pressed his trembling hands flat against his upper thighs and decided to try using words first.

"Sherlock?" he began. His friend's name tentatively left his throat. "Sherlock, it' s just a dream. Wake up, _please_."

Sherlock was not responding. He twisted back and forth, whimpering and pleading. With a faint voice he repeated the same words over and over again. His dead best friend's name, his sister's name, the request that she should tell him, no...

John swallowed. There was a tight lump lodged in his throat, one he couldn't seem to get rid of.

"Sherlock?", he tried again, and this time he decided to touch the dark-haired man's shoulder.

Sherlock snapped out of his dream. He sat bolt upright, shaking and gasping like a fish out of water. His glance hurriedly shifted across the room until it fell on John. And before he knew it, the military doctor found himself in a bone-breaking hug.

His breath hitched and John felt something warm and damp dripping onto his shoulder. Tears. Slowly he lifted his arms and wrapped them around Sherlock as well. "Shh... It's all right. It's a dream. Just a dream."

They sat there for a few minutes, until Sherlock wheezed out: "She... She killed him. My best friend. Viktor. And nearly, nearly did it again."

"I know Sherlock..." What else was he supposed to say? It was the truth, after all.

A tiny part of him was incredibly grateful. That Sherlock would show weakness in his presence. That he didn't put up a wall between them, shut him out and tried to deal with this on his own. He let John in, let him see the storm raging inside with his own eyes. He trusted John, felt secure with him, as it seemed. It was an enormous honor when it came to a man like Sherlock Holmes.

But the larger part... was hurting.

Pain on account of the experience he'd had to make the day before. Be it a man who shot himself in front of his eyes, in the desperate and futile attempt to save his wife, or a deep well filled with ice-cold water and a truth, which was so terrible that there was no word to express the horror of it.

And of course, it also hurt for Sherlock. Especially for Sherlock.

"It's all my fault... if _I_ would have been a better brother... if _I_ had been there for her, then..."

" Stop it!" John hadn't intended to sound so harsh, it just happened. Sherlock went silent. There was an oppressive quietness for a moment, then John said, softer: "You were just a child. There was _nothing_ you could have done differently. It wasn't your fault."

"I..."

"It _wasn't_ your fault," John repeated emphatically. Sherlock remained still, though John wondered if he understood.

After a while, they separated and John found the time to examine his friend. Red eyes, traces of dried tears on the pale cheeks, trembling shoulders. He barely swallowed a sigh.

"If you...want to talk about it, I'm here, Sherlock. I'll always be here!" He patted his friend's back and bestowed him with a sincere, gentle look. "Anytime!"

"I was scared," the detective blurted out. He drove a hand through his dark curls and evaded John's gaze as best he could. There was something hectic and fearful in the sharp eyes. "I was... so scared."

" Easy, just... breathe. Don't forget to breathe!"

„I AM BREATHING, DAMMIT!” Sherlock snapped. "I'm... I'm breathing...", he added quieter, almost guilty. John knew he didn't mean any harm. It was just too much. Far too much at once.

Then, after a while, Sherlock, calmer and more composed, said, "I was scared of her - of what she could be capable of - from the moment Mycroft told us about her at Baker Street. Things got worse when I faced her in Sherrinford. It got worse... with each of her perfidious little tests, till..."

" Till the well?" John asked in a low voice.

" Yeah, the well... "

John shuddered when he thought of this round, deep hole he had been stuck in just a few hours ago. Pale moonlight had fallen onto the cold, musty water and caused the surface to shimmer. The stone had been slick. Too slick to climb out. And then those bones...

God, the bones.

When he first found them, he hadn't been aware of what they were exactly. He was a doctor, he knew the structure of human bones like the back of his hand, but they had been small and everyone had always talked about redbeard and he had believed that redbeard was the name of a dog. Sure, it was cruel to drown your brother's dog in a well but... that John could take it.

Right up until he found the skull. A kid's skull. And from that point on, everything made sense. The truth behind Redbeard.

"You... you thought..." He was at a loss for words. He, who wrote a blog about crime stories with thousands of people following, lacked the right words.

"I thought you were dying," Sherlock slowly concluded. His voice trembled unmistakably.

John gently bit his lower lip. Yes, that was perfectly understandable. He himself hadn't believed he' d escape with his life, after all.

It was dangerous territory, to which he ventured with the next question, but it burned on his heart. He simply had to know and satisfy his own curiosity. And maybe it would help Sherlock, too. "Do you recall everything that happened back then?"

Sherlock shook his head. He played on a loose thread of the blanket, as if it were the most interesting riddle he had ever been asked to solve. "I remember fragments. "I remember Victor and how we played on the shore... The dreaded captain Yellowbeard and his first mate, the fearless Redbeard." The memory of his carefree game with his best friend brought a smile to Sherlock's face, but it soon faded.

"I remember Eurus being there too. She was running in circles around us, a toy plane in her hand. And Mycroft. He had to watch us, throwing rocks into the water, annoyed. That was... the last time I saw Victor. He never returned home that night..."

It was obvious what must have happened. Eurus had struck and lured little Victor into the well. Like a mouse running towards the trap, the cheese being so tempting.

"From then on, Eurus started to sing her song..."

_I that am lost,oh who will find me?_

_Deep down below the old beech tree_

_Help succour me now the east winds blow_

_Sixteen by six ,brother,and under we go !_

John listened as Sherlock quietly sang the lines of the ominous little song. When he had finished, he looked straight at him. "That's all there is. I try to remember, but... but it's like staring at a white wall, trying to convince myself there are paintings hanging there."

"Memories don't work so easily... If it were that simple, you would have never forgotten Eurus in the first place. You wouldn't have believed that your best friend was your dog. It's like that time during the Baskerville case, when you explained to Henry why he remembered a monster dog instead of his father's murderer. You were a kid, you couldn't cope, so your mind made something else out of it. Something you could handle better."

John took a break before he added, "I'm sure in time your memories will come back."

"And if I don't want them to come back? The bits and pieces that we found out about Eurus, that what Mycroft told us ... weren't those things bad enough? Do I even want to remember what else she might have done?"

John said nothing about that. He couldn't blame Sherlock, if he wished he could forget about all this. Even if he couldn't condone it. Forgetting wasn't always a release. Sometimes...sometimes it was more cruel than the memory itself.

"Wait... there' s one thing. It' not a memory, but something that Eurus said to me. In her cell," Sherlock suddenly said, in agitation. Not in a negative way, though.

"Violin!"

"Violin?"

Sherlock stared at John, as if he could see something there that John himself could not discern. "When I entered her cell, Eurus was playing the violin. She knew I was playing too. No-one had told her, she knew because she taught me when we were children."

" But is that true? What if it was just one of her lies to get..."

Sherlock interrupted him. "It _wasn't_ a lie, John. It was the truth. I know it's the truth because...because I feel it, do you understand?"

John understood indeed. Some things you just knew, and this was probably one of them. Which meant that if Eurus had taught little Sherlock to play, something that the present Sherlock enjoyed, not all the memories of the strange, highly intelligent girl were terrible.

"I know what I have to do." Something glommed in Sherlock's eyes, something that should perhaps worry John, or maybe was harmless. He asked what it was that the other had to do, but received no answer. It was not until a week later that he learned of it, when Mycroft came to pick up his brother.

"Are you sure? She doesn't know you're coming, you can still call it off."

"I'm sure of it, Mycroft," Sherlock answered with great confidence, packed his violin case and was out the door.

"Wait... He's visiting her? Eurus?" John asked in disbelief. He didn't know what to think, whether it was good or bad, that Sherlock confronted his trauma in this way. "Is that safe?" he asked later.

Mycroft sighed, shoulders slumped. "I don't know... But it was Sherlock's explicit wish, to see her whenever he wanted. And he...asked permission to play for her." A long pause, then: "Don't worry Dr. Watson, I won't let her hurt my little brother again."

"Good... because I'm not gonna let this happen either."


End file.
